Sunday, September 30, 2007

It's funny how things work out....

I have to laugh to night.
You see,earlier today I'd called my good friend Sarah thinking she had already returned from Nome and was in Memphis. Well, when she answered the phone, she thought I was in St. Louis. To both of our surprises, we were both in Anchorage. Me in my apartment, her in the airport. What makes this so funny is that each time our assignments ended, we tried to meet up in St. Louis. It never happened, once we missed each other by a mere 6 hours. So, after the last 10 1/2 months of us trying to connect @ home, we've now meet up 3 times in Alaska!
After we both got over the initial shock that we were once again in the same city...in Alaska, we had decided to go out for dinner and a little shopping for her plane wasn't to leave for another 3 1/2 hours...too bad I hadn't called two hours earlier for I could have driven her up to Willow to see my new cabin, which she has been wanting to see in person.
We had done the shopping bit pretty quickly for Sarah needed a roll around backpack or suitcase for her carry-on (her over the shoulder pack was hurting her back).
With a little over two hours before she needed to be back at the airport, we stopped at The Anchorage Cattle Company for dinner. It was a good thing we had 2 hours, took 15 minutes to have some one come to the table, another 10 before we finally got a menu and it took almost 45 minutes for our meal to arrive (good thing we were only 10 minutes away from the airport!) To make matters worse, they brought out Sarah's dinner, but not mine...was another 10 minutes before I got my dinner. When it was brought out, there was no baked potato (this was at 6:30 so it's not like it was the end of the night), they were out, so I opted for the garlic mashed potatoes. Another 10 minutes go by, no taters...seemed that they were out of those too and it would take another 15 minutes before they were ready so the waitress offered a free dessert. I took that instead of the 15 minute wait for mashed potatoes.
Too bad about the place, the food was really good but the lack of supplies and lousy service just screams "we are going out of business" and/or "our management sucks big time".
All in all, we were able to catch up on things during our insanely long wait times and talked about plans as to where we wanted to work next and possible connection points for us to get together again.

Back in Anchorage



Well, I'm back in Anchorage.
Not quite settled in for I have yet to close on the house in Willow, and I want to get my stuff to Willow before deciding what needs to stay here in Anchorage. Ugh.

Yesterday, I drove out to Whittier, it's about an hour away. The cool thing is that the only way you can get there by car is to go through a tunnel that was originally designed for just a train to go through. I do believe it was back in 2000 that they reworked it so that cars could go through it also, though, not at the same time. One neat thing, since it's only a one way tunnel, there is a schedule as to when the tunnel is open to get to Whittier and when you can go through to get to the rest of the state.
Here is a link for the tunnel:

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/virtualdrive.htm
(sorry, don't know why the auto link isn't working)

I had lucked out both times and arrived at the tunnel just as it was being opened for the direction I was going. So, I had no time to eat the lunch that I had brought with me.
Luck was also with me, in the fact that I was going to drive to Seward, but then decided not to do it. I stopped at a pull over point on the Seward highway on my way back to Anchorage to eat my lunch...a very late lunch at that. Not long after I'd finished my sandwich, I noticed a white line off in the distance, I shrugged it off thinking that I wouldn't be as lucky to stumble upon the right place and right time to watch the bore go through. I'd noticed that the white line had gotten closer, still thinking that it was a play of the sun & clouds, I kept an eye on the line...just in case. Well, not much more than a minute later, I had come to the conclusion that it was my lucky day and I'd get to see the bore tide for the first time in person. I was amazed as to how loud it was, and how quickly it moved. You can see and hear it here in this video.

After watching the tide come through, I understand how it can be surfed, and yes, there are a BUNCH of crazies that do surf it!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Anchorage bound


I'm getting really excited about this next assignment that I have. Though, I do have to admit, part of the excitement is due to my new home.
I'm excited about the new position, as for it will be a step up in skill level. It is a Long Term Acute Care Hospital. Essentially, it's a large step down unit. This hospital will not have OR suites or an ED. As it was explained to me, some patients are ones that need more time on a vent, or are too sick to go home and be alone but for one reason or another can't go to a rehab facility or are in need of some complicated dressing changes that home health is not willing to do.
It will be interesting to see how close my job comes to the descriptions.


What has me really excited is my new house, I've already got paint picked out for the rooms and I can't wait to get painting, which by the way, won't be any problems since I don't have any furniture to put in it at the moment. That is something that when I think about it, gives me mixed emotions, both excitement and dread. Excited cuz I get to shop, dread because I get to shop...I'm not looking forward to the tired feet from pounding the floors of department stores looking for the right couch, dishes or curtain nor am I looking forward to arranging deliveries on the larger items either!

Now, some people think that I'm crazy enough to drive from Willow to Anchorage every day (where do people get this idea?...I'm not that nuts, am I?). Let me shatter that belief right now! I'm not going to nor am I willing to drive 80-90 miles after a 12 hour night shift, much less turn around and do again that very evening...especially during the winter! What I'm doing is that I'm splitting time with another nurse, who works 12 hour day shifts, on a garage apartment. When I have more than one or 2 days off (or no plans to do anything in Anchorage or the Kenia) I will drive to Willow and Paco and I will spend time there.

It Sucks being on Alaskan time and be in Central time...

So, here I sit, in St. Louis, it's 11:15 PM and my body thinks it's 8:15 PM. What sucks about it is that everyone has gone to bed and I'm not ready to...so, here I sit, playing on the puter.
My friend, Sarah, has posted a bunch of polls/tests/whatevers on her blog and I checked out the website and played with some there, I got a kick out of the results on the one below......Keep in mind, my profession and the fact that I LOVE blue & green.



Your Inner Color is Blue

Your Personality: Your natural warmth and intuition nurtures those around you. You are accepting and always follow your heart.

You in Love: Relationships are your top priority, and this includes love. You are most happy when you are serious with someone.

Your Career: You need to help others in your job to feel satistifed. You would be a great nurse, psychologist, or counselor.

Friday, September 7, 2007

I should be packing.....

But NO, I'm sitting here, procrastinating and taking silly tests on line!
I've got a couple things I want to do, but I'm not going to allow myself to do them until I get all the stuff I want sent down to Anchorage packed and ready to go....since I'm leaving for Deadhorse the morning I get off work and will be gone every day that I have left off before I have to leave for my plane in Anchorage, I got to get busy!!! I guess I need to add: play on computer to my list of things I can do AFTER I get things packed!!!!

This test I found interesting....guess I need to go and get a copy & read it!





You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.



Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Lovely signature from an email I receive from a Yahoo group

Lord, keep Your arm around my shoulder
and Your hand over my mouth.